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Building Community

Online Learning: Building Community

Kristin DeAngelis
J. Garvey Pyke, Ed.D.

Printable Version: Online Learning: Building Community [PDF, 146 KB]

Question:

In a traditional classroom, many instructors rely upon student discussions to promote interaction with course material, a feeling of community, and higher level thinking. Is community important in an online classroom? How can instructors build community among their students? What methods have been effective in getting students to engage with each other and the material in an online or hybrid course?

Answer:

Instructors can transfer many of the same best teaching practices used for building community in a classroom based course to their online courses, but some slight adaptations may be necessary. Instructors should also take advantage of the features of the course technology that can be used to create a more interactive environment.

Proof:

  • Brown (2001) analyzed archived online course records and interviewed students and instructors in an effort to determine how community is formed in online courses. He discovered that community is building is a three-stage process. First, students needed to become comfortable with responding to their classmates. Second, they became more involved by participating in thoughtful discussion together. Third, they achieved camaraderie by incorporating personal communication. Each stage a student passed through marked increased participation in the class and the online discussions.
  • McElrath and McDowell (2008)tested Brown’s three stage theory of online community development in their courses by designing concrete practices to promote each step. For the first step, creating a comfortable environment, they used a course chat. For the second step, promoting thoughtful interaction, McElrath and McDowell conducted an ice breaker, similar to what many instructors do in traditional courses. For the third step, incorporating personal conversation, they used students’ stories to illustrate course concepts and theories in addition to examples from the course readings. The strategies were effective, and resulted in more student participation.
  • Dziuban, Moskal, Brophy, and Shea (2007) used their students’ own interests to get them interacting in an online discussion thread for their hybrid courses. At the beginning of the semester, they set up discussion groups so that students could upload their favorite movies and music. They sorted the information in an Excel sheet, and created a top 50 list. They downloaded the songs and use the lyrics to introduce topics during lectures. This not only encouraged students to interact with each other online, but also helped them make connections between their lives and the course material.
  • Williams and Humphrey (2007)studied over 2500 threaded discussion posts from a Master’s in Teaching English as a Second Language course to determine exactly what factors of an initial post resulted in responses. They found that posts ending in a direct question resulted in more responses than those that did not, as did posts directed to a broad audience rather than a specific class member. Longer posts were more likely to generate responses than shorter posts. The poster’s gender and use of specific names had no effect on the likelihood of a response.
  • Hiltz, Coppola, Rotter, Turoff, Benbunan-Fich (2000)compiled the results of three separate studies of online learning discussion groups, and concluded that when online students worked in a collaborative group, the length and quality of assignments improves, as does the student perception of learning. They also found that instructors who successfully used group assignments in their online courses felt that their students performed equal to or better than their traditional classroom students while instructors who did not provide adequate structure for their online discussions felt that the traditional classroom experience was more effective.
  • The University of North Texas placed new online students into a cohort in which they took their first and second semester courses as a group. Prior to beginning their coursework, the students met each other and their instructors face to face at a week-long Web Institute. Initial in-person contact and a sustained group better enabled students to develop a learning community in an online environment (Moore 2007).
  • Effkin (2005) took digital photos of her students in an online nursing program, and posted the pictures so that other students have a visual representation of their peers. Students responded that being able to picture the people with whom they were interacting fostered an online community in their courses.
  • Mirtschin (2008)used live blogging through Cover It Live as a collaborative learning tool in her classes to promote conversation between international students, and found live blogging to be a great interactive and collaborative tool. It also had a very positive reception from the students. The program worked like a chat room, except that all of the content was filtered through the instructor. She could use audio to guide her students, ask real time poll questions, and approve student comments for inclusion in the discussion.
  • Vesely, Bloom, and Sherlock (2007)asked 62 faculty members and graduate level students experienced with online courses what factors influenced community building in online courses. Both the students and the faculty members were aware of the benefits of an online community. Students ranked instructor modeling as the most effective way to promote community, and expressed a desire for more feedback from instructors in their online courses.

Further Reading:

  • The Sloan Consortium publishes the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks and other reports. http://www.sloan-c.org/
  • Educause seeks to advance of higher education through information technology through the reports from the Educause Center for Applied Research, Educause Learning Initiative, and Educause Connect, all of which provide current information about the uses of technology in education. http://www.educause.edu/

Sources:

Brown, R. E. (2001).The process of community-building in distance learning classes. Journal of Asynchronous Learning. 5, 18-35.

Dziuban, C., Moskal, P., Brophy, J., & Shea, P. (2007). Student satisfaction with asynchronous learning. Journal of Asynchronous Learning, 11, 87-95.

Effkin, J. (2005). Rotating student photos to sustain community. Retrieved November 4, 2008, from Sloan Consortium Web site: http://sloanconsortium.org/node/191

Hiltz, S. R., Coppola, N., Rotter, N., Turoff, M., & Benbunan-Fich, R. (2000). Measuring the importance of collaborative learning for the effectiveness of ALN: A multi-measure, multi-method approach. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. 4, 103-125.

McElrath, E., & McDowell, K. (2008). Pedagogical strategies for building community in graduate level distance education courses. Journal of Online Teaching and Learning. 4, 117-127.

Mirtschin, A. (2008, November 17). [Weblog] Live blogging in education. Classroom 2.0. Retrieved November 18 2008, from http://www.classroom20.com/profiles/blogs/live-blogging-in-education-1

Moore, J. (2007) Web institutes. Retrieved November 4, 2008, from Sloan Consortium Web site: http://sloanconsortium.org/node/423

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (1999). Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace:.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Vesely, P., Bloom, L., & Sherlock, J. (2007). Key elements of building online community: Comparing faculty and student perceptions. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. 3, 234-246.

Williams, R. S., & Humphrey, R. (2007). Understanding and fostering interaction in threaded discussion. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. 11, 129-143.

About this Teaching Tip Sheet:

This Teaching Tip Sheet was prepared by Ms. Kris DeAngelis and Dr. Garvey Pyke at the Center for Teaching and Learning at UNC Charlotte. Please visit us online at teaching.uncc.edu for more professional development resources.